After writing yesterday about Nick tearing up the carpet, I got into the act to help the process move faster. We split up the tasks, so that he was on "slicing and dicing" duty to tear the carpet into rollable strips for easier transport, and I was on staple/nail duty - given the happy task of pulling staples up from the floor with a pliers, and using a hammer & screwdriver combination to pry up the wooden trim nailed into the floorboards along the walls.
THIS WAS AWESOME. Nick said it was boring, but I had a great time. I love physical labor - it frees my mind to wander around and play with ideas. Also, I love creative destruction. I love tearing things up. I love making a huge mess and getting filthy. Or, as Austin Kleon might say , "Creativity is subtraction". I highly recommend a little creative destruction for getting the juices flowing.
While we were also moving furniture around to pull up the carpet, we decided to also rid ourselves of some of the heavy, unwieldy furniture. So the bulky gigantic chest of drawers/mirror that a former symphony co-worker gave me for free? Down to the curb. We earned pizza and beer moving that thing. Heavy ornamental screen? Gone. I see that someone picked it up from our curb already this morning. And much joy may they have of these items (or, money).
Once you start, though, downsizing gets to be addictive. "Let's throw everything away!" Well, probably not everything, but we're now committed to a campaign of cleaning out the closets and the attic, and taking stock of which furniture items are going to be discarded/put into a yard sale when we (hopefully) move next year.
Now, of course, my office is a tremendous mess, since it received the overflow from the bedroom. I'm kind of revved up to throw more stuff away and organize today.
A note on the carpet - we found a date sticker on the last strip of it. Feb 14 2007. We bought the house in May of 2007. So the previous owners painted the bedroom and slapped the carpet down over the damaged hardwood. Cheeky.
Labels: austin kleon, creativity, destruction, home repairs, photography, removing the unnecessary, ript it up and start again
¶ 4:47 AM 0 Comments
A cool, grey, and rainy day at Chez Nick & Heather WV. So I thought the photo above was appropriate. That's the shut-down post office at Thurmond, WV. If you're waiting for the mail, you'll be waiting a long time. I have that same kind of feeling of waiting for something today.
Dr. Nick is pulling up the nasty carpet in the bedroom, revealing the hard wood below. It needs some sanding and refinishing, to be sure, but it's still perfectly lovely hardwood. We are starting to think that the closets are not original; and then when someone did a shoddy job with the closets they also put down the horrible carpet, which somewhat covered that up. Anyway, Nick's doing the hard work - pulling up the staples and tacks & so forth that held the mat down - and I'm helping by moving things around and sweeping and rolling the carpet back a little at a time. Oh, we are making a grand chaos in the bedroom.
We've had a quiet weekend. I went downtown yesterday morning to the Library Book Sale (I only spent $5!) and the Capitol St. Art Fair. I ran into some artists I know, and had a few pleasant conversations.
I've still got hundreds of photos that are unprocessed, all the way back to May. I'm not sure why I'm dragging my heels, probably because I'm feeling a bit insecure. Surprise.
My novel-in-progress is going rather slowly, too. I have about 5,000 words on paper, but many more thoughts in my head. I am not out of the game yet, and this is no NanoWriMo. I consider any progress by the end of August to be success.
Still there are things to look forward to: we're going to Ann Arbor next weekend - and friends are visiting - and the upstate New York trek happens at the end of July/early August too. I'm not really in hiking shape, but there's still time to improve that.
For my friends who like 80's music, which is most of you, you might enjoy this John Maus album that you can stream at NPR First listen. It's called 'We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves'. Love it!
Labels: books, Charleston, dr. nick, NanoTime Photography, photography, Thurmond, travelling, writing, WV
¶ 2:01 PM 0 Comments
I'm out for the weekend to the Wilds of West Virginia with good friends; it is expected that we'll be off the internet grid. (horrors!) Take care and do good work while I'm gone!
Labels: Kanawha State Forest, NanoTime Photography, summer, vacation, WV
¶ 8:12 AM 0 Comments
This is one from the archives, from our trip to Bemidji, MN last summer. It's appropriate.
1. It's pretty much summer here in tha WV, and hot enough that we've had to use the air conditioning already.
2. We had our Third Annual Memorial Day party on Sunday; it was a great day for it. Good company and food was had.
3. We reprised our party for an audience of two on Monday; Mohnacky, the guitarist from our wedding and much-missed Charleston friend, is visiting from NYC with his girlfriend Megan. So we grilled with them again on Monday. Also, we're taking a long weekend away with them starting Friday. We're heading to the wilds of West Virginia! We'll be bunking in a cabin in the Greenbrier State Forest and doing some day trips for activities and sight-seeing. For sure, we won't have internet for four days. I expect that to be lovely.
4. My physical copy of Kate Bush's new album came today (Thanks, Amazon Prime!). The photography in the liner notes is pretty great, and I recommend fans pick up a hard copy.
5. I won't have internet this weekend, but I will have my laptop along, so I can upload the (hopefully) many photos I'll be shooting, and so I can work on my summer project.
6. Which brings me the Summer Project; I feel I should come clean about it so people can help keep me honest. I'm writing a Young Adult novel in three months this summer, starting today, as per this blog post by excellent writer Theodora Goss . I've gathered a small but mighty crew, I'm aiming for 1,000 words per day and a goal of 75,000 - 90,000 words total. So that's happening.
7. Dr. Nick and I have been married now for three years. Yay!
8. Dr. Nick is making me his Caesar salad; and then we're going to watch more Farscape. I have no complaints.
Labels: dr. nick, food, friends, NanoTime Photography, summer, west virginia, writing
¶ 4:34 PM 0 Comments
